


X Marks the Spot

by Themistoklis



Category: Girls With Slingshots
Genre: F/F, scavenger hunt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themistoklis/pseuds/Themistoklis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie and Erin enter a promotional contest to get the chance to complete a scavenger hunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	X Marks the Spot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheFifthCircuit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFifthCircuit/gifts).



> Thank you to my fellow Yuletiders for beta-ing!

Jamie yawns over the mail in her hands, and shoulders open the door to her apartment. Her skin still smells like soil even though she spent more than enough time washing her hands at the sink on the way out of work. Some days are longer than others.

Bill, bill, coupon mailer, bill, bill…

"Oooh," she says, running a nail through the sticker holding a bright pink flier together. Neon paper is definitely way of getting her attention.

As she reads the flier, the corners of her mouth turn up, and so do her toes inside her shoes.

"Erin! Want to enter a contest?"

\---

Later that week, Hazel twists around on the couch and rests her elbows on the back. There's a little squeaky noise from protesting springs in the cushions as her knees dig in. "How do you win a scavenger hunt you haven't entered?" she asks, one eyebrow arching up. "I'm pretty sure you can only win after you've gathered everything."

"That's our little Hazel," Jamie says. She sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and makes an X across the 18th on the calendar. "Always asking how the floor's held up."

"Hey!"

Erin giggles, covering her mouth with both hands. Hazel sighs and collapses on the couch, still draped over the back. Her eyes follow Jamie's footsteps as she starts to walk back and forth across the room, getting out a big bowl and all the pudding and cookies to pour into it for dinner. The food pyramid can take a hike for another day, there are giddy romantic comedies to watch tonight.

"We entered the contest to win the list to scavenge with," Jamie explains. "Some new catering company is sponsoring it."

The envelope is pinned to the wall next to the calendar. It's not bright pink, unfortunately. Jamie had nearly overlooked it the day it came. But it did have another flier inside, which only says that she and Erin have won the chance to complete the scavenger hunt. (Well, that, and the logo, phone number, and address of the new catering company in town.) They need to be at the park on the afternoon of the 18th to get the list of items.

Erin slides out of her chair and pads barefoot over to the kitchen counter. She pours a container of Oreos into a plastic bag, zips it up, and starts pounding it with her fists. "Yeah, I think it's supposed to lead to something at the end. Not the catering company, though, that's pretty far away from the park."

There goes Hazel's eyebrow again. "Isn't that a _treasure_ hunt?"

The crumbled Oreos get poured onto a layer of vanilla bean pudding and Jamie's mouth starts watering. "Tomato, magenta," she says, flapping her hand.

Hazel snorts. She flops back down on the couch and lifts her empty cocktail glass above her head after popping her maraschino cherry into her mouth. "Pour me another Shirley Temple."

"I'm going to cut you off soon."

\---

They show up at the park at three-thirteen sharp. It's a sweater day, and the wind ruffles Erin's pigtails as they walk down the path from the entrance. Jamie keeps her lips pursed and her eyes scanning the park for clues.

"There are a lot more people here than I was expecting," Erin says, looking around. She stands up on her toes for a moment before falling back to her heels and stepping around a hole in the dirt path. "I wonder if anyone else came for the scavenger hunt. Are we competing with other teams?"

"We shouldn't be," Jamie says, frowning. The letter had said they'd been the drawing's grand prize winner.

There are more the further they get along the path, and a lot less of them are paying attention to her still-pink hair than people have in other parts of the city. She's not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing, although she did take special care in smoothing it out today.

Jamie tugs on Erin's hand to swerve left instead of right when they come to a fork. A milling crowd over the bump of a hill is letting out a dull buzz of noise that's worthy of investigation.

"A craft fair!" Erin says, her face lighting up when they crest the hill. Then she sticks out her tongue. "Oh, we should've gotten a booth."

"Mmm, next year," Jamie says, squeezing Erin's hand. "This seems like a good place to start looking for clues."

And so they go, flitting in and out of the crowd, winding around stalls and avoiding overflowing trash cans. Jamie makes sure not to let go of Erin's hand, even though she doesn't think it would be hard to spot each other in the crowd. One upside to the pink hair is that she hasn't gotten lost since she dyed it.

Pink hair and pink… ah. "I've got it!"

They rush over to a vendor sitting on a cart surrounded by balloons, most of them red and blue, but a hot pink one tied to his wrist. The note to go to the park hadn't told them where they would find the first clue, but Jamie just knows that this is the place to start.

"Hello," she tells the vendor, leaning forward on her toes. She points at the hot pink balloon and Erin unfurls the flier they got telling them to come to the park. The vendor leans forward and squints at it over the top of his glasses. "I think that's for us."

"I do believe it is," the man says.

He hands them the hot pink balloon while Jamie shakes a little dance, her feet kicking up little clouds of dust off the grass. Erin gets up on her toes again, but this time it's to peel a piece of paper taped to the top of the balloon. "Oh, what's that?" Jamie asks, leaning over Erin's shoulder.

"It's the list. Balloon--"

"Check!"

"Wicker basket, two drinking glasses, two crazy straws, a hand-held telescope, and toe socks."

They share a look and grin.

\---

The woman at the wicker basket stall takes their balloon in trade for the first item on the list, which makes Jamie a little sad. She waves goodbye to it and giggles at the Red Riding Hood impression Erin does when the basket is on her arm.

"What's that sheet? Another list?" Erin asks, once she's gotten a chance to look inside the basket. 

Jamie leans over and tugs on a small piece of paper that's been taped to the wicker. She unfolds it and holds it up so the both of them can read it, while they huddle at the corner of a path and people stream around them in both directions. "It's a coupon for two free glasses."

"At least we don't have to pay for the stuff on the list," Erin says.

Snorting, Jamie tucks the coupon into the front pocket of her cardigan. "Yeah, that would be a bit much," she says. She looks around the stalls but doesn't spot anyone selling glasses, so she and Erin start wandering, on the look-out. "Are you sure the coupon didn't have a clue?" she asks.

Erin tilts her head to one side. "It just said two free glasses," she says.

"There must be some kind of strategy we can employ," Jamie reasons. She wishes she had her bubble pipe on her, and her hat and cape, but it hadn't seemed the right weather. Instead she has a blank piece of paper and no idea who to trade it to. Unless they start asking people if there are any glass blowers at the fair…

Erin grins with one corner of her mouth. "Well, we could keep walking around in circles…"

"Ah-ha, but a scavenger hunt has some kind of mystery to it!" Jamie says, flourishing a finger to make her point. She smells something good in the distance and doesn't mind Erin tugging her in that direction for a moment. "These aren't random items. They go together!"

"The straws and the cups, yeah, but a telescope?"

"The basket's to carry the telescope," Jamie insists. She realizes they've reached the last row of stalls, and they stop in the grass, looking around. Or, well, Jamie looks around anyway. Erin is just grinning.

"And the toe socks?" she asks.

Jamie's sure Erin's wiggling her toes inside her shoes. Who can say toe socks without wiggling their toes inside their shoes? "We'll figure that out," she says. Her mouth starts to water. "Right after we figure out what that smell is," she says.

"Soft pretzels." Erin points at a wheeled cart someone's pushing along this edge of the craft fair. It has a hot pink balloon tied to the sign, which makes them both perk up. Though there's just the one pink balloon in a bunch of blues and greens, so it may not mean anything. Erin asks, "Should we get some?"

"Is that even a question?"

They get in line behind a few people who've stopped the vendor. While Erin orders two salted pretzels, Jamie looks over the pictures of lemonade taped to the side of the cart. They do look pretty delicious, and the glasses come with swirling crazy straws… Oh!

She pulls the coupon for two free glasses out of her front pocket and shows it to the vendor. "Is this good here?" she asks. Sure, he's not a craft seller, but glasses and crazy straws _are_ on the list, so…

The vendor examines the coupon for a moment, and Jamie bites her lip, but he nods wordlessly and produces two plastic glasses of lemonade -- complete with crazy straws -- along with their soft pretzels.

"Check and check!" Jamie declares, carrying her food over to a bench.

Erin is already eating, but she jostles her pretzel and her lemonade to give Jamie a thumbs-up.

\---

The empty lemonade glasses clink in the wicker basket when they start walking again. Jamie loops her arm through Erin's while Erin holds the basket, and their shoulders bump together any time they have to step over a stick or around a pile of purchases someone set on the ground for a moment.

"Jamie, look," Erin says, pointing. "That kid has a little telescope."

"So he does," Jamie says. She smiles broadly. Sure enough, they're coming to the end of the hunt. Then they'll know what this has been all about. She would puff on her bubble pipe if she had it. For now, she settles for walking confidently with Erin over to where a little boy is playing with a black plastic telescope.

Jamie crouches down. "Hello. I'm Jamie, and this is Erin."

The kid sniffs and looks at her through it backwards. A tag tied to the end of the telescope flaps into his face and he pushes it off. "Whoa. You're really tiny!"

"Ooh, I bet that's fun," Jamie says. She wonders what the craft fair looks like tiny. But time enough for that later! Erin bends down and tilts her head at the tag, and the kid pulls the telescope away from his face. He looks back and forth between them.

"Can you tell us where you got that telescope?" Erin asks, politely.

The kid sniffs again. "It's the only one," he declares.

They exchange a look and Jamie taps her finger against her chin. "Trade you for it."

Frowning, the kid mimics her, using the telescope to tap his chin. "Do you have any…" He pauses and then sits up straighter. "Marbles?" he asks, hopefully.

Jamie and Erin exchange another look, this one much less calculating. They turn their backs to the kid and Jamie puts an arm around Erin's shoulder, leaning in to whisper. "Where are we going to get marbles?" she asks, pursing her lips.

"No marbles, no telescope!" the kid announces behind them. Jamie sighs.

Together they stand up and take a few steps away, back towards the craft fair. It seems unlikely that anyone would be selling marbles here. Jamie doesn't even know how marbles are made. She guesses they could go back to finding a glass blower, except for marbles instead of drinking glasses, but they hadn't had much luck with that in the first place.

Erin interrupts her thoughts. "Did you see the tag on the telescope?"

"No." Jamie turns to look at her. "Did it have someone's name?"

"Just the number 357," Erin says, shrugging.

"357, 357..." Jamie pauses and walks up to the nearest craft seller. "Excuse me," she says. "Are these stalls numbered?"

The woman blinks and shakes her head.

Oh.

A dead end. Jamie sighs again. She turns to tell Erin that her idea didn't work out, but Erin isn't where she left her. Jamie darts into the crowd and turns in a couple of circles, rocking onto her toes to see over other people's shoulders, before she spots Erin at a booth with a big yarn display at one corner.

Erin spots her too and waves her over. "I won marbles!" she says. She points to the wicker basket, which has something wrapped up in paper. "And toe socks."

"How?"

"Look," Erin says. She points at a jar of marbles at the back of the booth. It has a sign taped to it that says _Guess and win!_ "I asked if there were 357 marbles in the jar and I won two pairs of toe socks." She pulls something out of her pocket and shows Jamie four marbles. "I didn't actually win the marbles," she admits, smiling sheepishly. "But I asked if I could have a couple."

Jamie smiles and hugs her tight. "Let's go get that telescope."

\---

She's busy looking at how tiny the craft fair is through the wrong end of the telescope while Erin unwraps the paper the toe socks came in.

Now that they've completed the list Jamie expects to find some other clue telling them how to finish the hunt. Maybe they turn the items in for an even better prize. Humming under her breath, Jamie turns the telescope around and starts hunting for another hot pink balloon, or a flier taped to a tree, or anything, really.

"These look cozy," Erin says. There's some more paper rustling. "Hey, Jamie, look at this."

Jamie does, but she turns with the telescope first, and the lines on the paper Erin is holding up loom large in her vision. She loses her balance for a second and has to put the telescope down in the wicker basket. "Ugh," she says, shaking her head. "What is it?"

"A map, though not a very well-drawn one."

Blinking, Jamie steps around to look at it with Erin. "This is the craft fair," she says, pointing at some symbols -- a balloon, a basket, some yarn, some marbles. It's surrounded by green, which must be the park.

There's a dotted line that swerves around the map, and a big red X at the end.

"This might be just down the street from where we parked," Erin says, after a minute. "The line starts at the entrance where we came in, and this little cross street is where we turned to get to the park."

Jamie nods. "All right. Let's go find us an X."

Erin smiles. "Hazel had a point that this is a bit of a treasure hunt," she says, as they start walking back towards the park entrance.

"Pish-posh."

\---

At the building -- which does not have an X painted on it, but does have someone wearing a catering company uniform waiting for them outside -- they're escorted up to the roof through the elevator. The person who brought them up takes their basket but returns the toe socks and telescope. Then he directs them to a plush picnic blanket set out on the rooftop.

Jamie settles back against some pillows while Erin snuggles up against her side. She wiggles her toes in the toe socks and smiles. "Well, we have a pretty good view up here," she says.

Head resting on Jamie's shoulder, Erin grins in return. She's fiddling with the hand-held telescope, sliding it out and then compressing it again. "We'll have a better view when the sun goes down," she says. She peers through the telescope for a moment.

The next time they see people, it's two servers who come out with trays that go across their laps. Their lemonade glasses have been refilled and the crazy straws clink against ice. On each of their trays is a bowl of cut watermelon on toothpicks, some seasoned fries -- which are hot enough that they sting Erin's fingertips when she picks one up -- and a pile of pigs in a blanket. Not the kind of thing you'd order for a wedding, but fine enough for a house party or a rooftop picnic.

Jamie wiggles her toes again and clicks her glass against Erin's. "Cheers," she says, kissing Erin's cheek. Erin nuzzles her back.

The servers turn on white string lights when the sun sets, but it doesn't block out the sight of the stars through their telescope. They get hot chocolate and vanilla bean ice cream on brownies for dessert, and Erin loops her arms around Jamie's waist while they make up stories about the constellations.

So maybe it was a treasure hunt after all.


End file.
